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Director of the Office of Government Ethics Walter M. Shaub donated to President Obama before his appointment and defended Hillary Clinton’s decision to not disclose paid speeches to the Clinton Foundation while she was secretary of state. Shaub, the head of the little-known ethics office, has been on the attack against President-elect Donald J. Trump for months. Shaub has called Trump’s plan to sign over control of his business to his sons “meaningless,” and engaged in tweet storms from the official ethics Twitter account encouraging Trump to divest. A timeline compiled by the PAC America Rising of Shaub’s service at...

California-DC Corruption Connection Trump Makes Good Moves On Ethics Issue Shootout at U.S. Consulate Part of Terrorist Attack Plan for Inauguration California-DC Corruption Connection I’ve often observed that, when it comes to public policy, the Obama Justice Department has been a locus of evil. And therefore it was concerning to see that the man who ran that Obama agency for years, the disgraced Eric Holder, has gotten himself a new, government-related gig. On January 4 liberal California legislative leaders announced that they are using tax dollars to hire former Attorney General Eric Holder and his law firm to assist...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton today made the following statement regarding the announcement by President-Elect Donald J. Trump that he had officially handed “complete and total” control of his business empire to his sons, Don Jr and Eric, in order to avoid potential conflicts of interest once he enters the White House: While there is no off-the-shelf ethics plan for a matter as complex and unprecedented as this, Mr. Trump seems to be on the right track. As we said in our recent New York Times op-ed , it would be unfair to insist that Mr. Trump...

President-elect Donald Trump intends to name his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a senior adviser to his White House - a move that would put to the test a 1967 anti-nepotism law and provide a Trump White House already rife with ethical questions a bona fide legal showdown. In fact, this amounts to Trump's "first attempt to ignore the law," according to Washington University government ethics expert Kathleen Clark. And she says it has huge implications not just for Kushner, but for the rest of his presidency.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Saturday called for the Senate to not hold confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet picks until after the completion of an ethics screening. "Cabinet officials must put our country's interests before their own. No [confirmation] hearings should be held until we’re certain that’s the case," the Massachusetts Democrat tweeted. [Snip] "This is ridiculous," Warren tweeted, "[Trump's nominees] can’t drag their feet on ethics paperwork while their Senate friends try to run out the clock."

The Office of Government Ethics is raising alarm over the pace of confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump's nominees, saying Saturday that they have yet to receive required financial disclosures for some picks set to come before Congress next week. In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., released Saturday, OGE Director Walter Shaub wrote that "the announced hearing schedule for several nominees who have not completed the ethics review process is of great concern to me" and that the current schedule "has created undue pressure on OGE's staff and agency ethics officials...

Mother Jones writes, "It's not easy to evict someone in California… Generally that's a good thing." But many people who read the article in which this claim appears may reach a different conclusion.Elizabeth Abel, an English professor at the University of California-Berkeley, rented her two-bedroom home to David Peritz, who teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. Abel didn't bother to ask for references or do much research on her prospective tenant, according to Mother Jones: the fact that he was an academic was essentially good enough for her.Her trust was misplaced. Peritz failed to pay rent on time, and it...

President-elect Trump has won another victory before even taking office. This time, it wasn’t Ford, Carrier, or some other corporation forced to capitulate in the wake of a tweet, it was the majority of the House of Representatives.  Put simply, Trump has demonstrated the he is in charge, and the House majority caucus had better get used to following his lead. There has been some well-justified concern over the willingness of the GOP establishment [Congressional branch] to work with the Trump administration.  After all, he has been attacking them a denizens of the swamp that needs to be drained. And...

The Trump effect has landed forcefully on Capitol Hill. Less than two hours after President-elect Donald Trump criticized House Republicans — in a tweet, of course — for trying to gut an ethics investigative unit on the first day of business in the new Congress, those plans lay in shambles in the Republican conference’s meeting room. The immediate outcome was to keep intact the independent Office of Congressional Ethics There was a broader outcome, too: The unruly Republican caucus that has wreaked havoc in the House for the entirety of Ryan’s tenure fell in line. And there were signs, judging...

We've been following this story since it broke last night, the trajectory of which has been quite remarkable to track. House Republicans foolishly opened the new year with a surprise move to weaken an internal ethics watchdog office, drawing immediate and widespread criticism from virtually all quarters -- from Elizabeth Warren to Judicial Watch. These condemnations were unfair, some supporters of the move argued, because the Office of Congressional Ethics was due to for significant and needed reforms. Members from both sides had become frustrated with the body's opacity, alleged foot-dragging, and selective leaks; some also contended that accused parties (often under investigation...

President-elect Trump is on a roll today. Following House Republican's vote to strip the Ethics Office of independence, Trump lashed out with a tweet suggesting Congress' time be better spent on other things... and just minutes ago, following an emergency meeting, Republicans have confirmed the amendment has been pulled. As a reminder, House Republicans abruptly voted on Monday night to eliminate the independence of the Office of Congressional Ethics, the chamber’s nonpartisan ethics board which investigates lawmakers' alleged misconduct, largely stripping it of its power, leading to pushback from Democrats and government watchdog groups. House Republicans, meeting as a group...

The mainstream media are abuzz with claims that House Republicans have voted to “gut” or “eviscerate” the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), or to strip it of its independence. Perpetual House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claimed Republicans had “eliminated” the oversight body, and linked the move to President-elect Donald Trump, claiming that the House Republicans’ move represents a violation of Trump’s campaign promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington. The story qualifies as “fake news,” and the fact that it is being repeated by so many outlets does not make the it any less fake. First of all, the...

Yes, the House is weakening the powers of an independent entity that was authorized to investigate allegations of wrongdoing... But keep some perspective: the Office of Congressional Ethics had two powers: the first was to issue those public reports — giving the accused member of Congress bad publicity. The second was to refer their findings to the House Ethics Committee, which could implement a more serious punishment, like fines and formal reprimands by the full House. Under the old system, the referrals went to the House Ethics Committee, consisting of five Democrats and five Republicans. Under the new system, the...

The House Republican Conference voted Monday night to approve a change to House rules to weaken the independence of the Office of Congressional Ethics and place it under the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee — a panel controlled by party leaders. It will be part of a broader House Rules package voted on by the full body on Tuesday, after the 115th Congress officially convenes and the House elects a speaker. It's a move that is already causing a backlash among Democrats, who say it's hypocritical given that President-elect Donald Trump was elected vowing to "drain the swamp" in...

WASHINGTON — House Republicans, overriding their top leaders, voted on Monday to significantly curtail the power of an independent ethics office set up in 2008 in the aftermath of corruption scandals that sent three members of Congress to jail. The move to effectively kill the Office of Congressional Ethics was not made public until late Monday, when Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that the House Republican Conference had approved the change. There was no advance notice or debate on the measure. The surprising vote came on the eve of the...

A record high portion of people see reporters as low or very low ethical standards, after a year in which the winning president-elect made trashing the media's honesty a centerpiece of his campaign. A new Gallup poll said 41 percent of people polled said the media have low ethical standards. That's 10 points higher than the prior high of 31 percent of those who held the same view of the press in 2008 and 2009. Trust in college teachers has also slipped.

How Trump Can Avoid the Ethical Tar Pit Somali “Community” Given Special Access to Secured Areas of Airports JW Reveals Shocking Details About Mexican Heroin Cartels How Trump Can Avoid the Ethical Tar Pit A tsunami of change is washing over Washington D.C. as a new administration, from a different party, enters the process of transition. For us at Judicial Watch, however, it’s business as usual. As corrupt as the Obama administration has been, we are under no illusion that a new broom sweeps entirely clean. Even before he takes the oath of office, President-elect Trump is under pressure over...

In a 2011 memo published by Wikileaks, Clinton underling Doug Band described how he secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in free travel and gifts for Bill Clinton and his family. While Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton did not disclose any gifts or free travel, as required. The gifts were first reported by Alana Goodman in the Daily Mail: ‘In support of the President’s for-profit activity, we also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the President and his family – for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like,’ wrote Band in the Nov. 16, 2011 memo...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to arrange Pentagon and State Department consulting contracts for her daughter’s friend, prompting concerns of federal ethics rules violations. Clinton in 2009 arranged meetings between Jacqueline Newmyer Deal, a friend of Chelsea Clinton and head of the defense consulting group Long Term Strategy Group, with Pentagon officials that involved contracting discussions, according to emails from Clinton’s private server made public recently by the State Department. Clinton also tried to help Deal win a contract for consulting work with the State Department’s director of policy planning, according to the emails. Deal is a close...

There is another major announcement I am going to make today as part of our pledge to drain the swamp in Washington. If I am elected President, I will push for a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress. Decades of failure in Washington, and decades of special interest dealing, must come to an end. We have to break the cycle of corruption, and we have to give new voices a chance to go into government service. The time for Congressional term limits has arrived. ...